As per the reports, the information technology and biotechnology (IT/BT) companies are encouraging employees to continue work from home, except for those involved in critical functions, even after the partial relaxation of the lockdown will kick in from 20 April.
As earlier, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), in its revised guidelines, said IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS) companies can resume operations from their offices from Monday, with up to 50% workforce.
While, the Karnataka government withdrew its earlier order allowing 50% employee strength of IT/BT companies to operate from offices after 20 April.
Further, the chief minister BS Yediyurappa on Saturday clarified that only essential or critical services of IT/BT companies will be allowed to work from the office and the remaining will continue to work from home, after deliberations with officials.
Contents
What Does HCL Say?
The IT major HCL Technologies said it will continue to operate with only critical staff being present on-premises to ensure the safety of employees amid the nationwide lockdown.
The HCL Technologies spokesperson said, “HCL will continue its critical operations with a much lesser percentage of workforce to aid social distancing and ensuring a safe working environment for business-critical employees who need to be onsite,”.
Further, the spokesperson added that presently, the company continues to work with only critical resources required to be in office to ensure employee safety.
What Does Wipro Say?
On Saturday, the Wipro chairman, Rishad Premji said “Despite the partial relaxation of the lockdown from 20 April, please do so only if absolutely, absolutely essential. I plan to continue working from home because I can and want to make way for those that truly need to be out,” in a tweet.
93% of the billable employees at Wipro have received client approvals to deliver services from home.
Further, the chief executive officer and managing director (CEO & MD), Wipro, Abidali Neemuchwala, said “There are certain types of critical work such as testing in our labs for 5G as part of our engineering services, which can’t be done from home. Then there are certain HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) privacy requirements in the BPO (business process outsourcing) business because of which customers may not give approvals to work from home,”.
What Does Infosys, Mindtree And Dell Technologies Say?
Bengaluru based IT firms such as Infosys Ltd, Mindtree Ltd and Dell Technologies had begun asking their employees to work from home even before the first lockdown, after some tested positive for COVID-19.
The trend seems to be continued for some more time.
Apart from that, the public transport in cities such as Mumbai and Bengaluru are suspended.
While, Mumbai, which has over 176 containment zones, is rigidly observing the lockdown.
So is the IT hub Bengaluru, which has clamped down on two-wheeler movement, with only essential service providers with permits being allowed.
If offices get open, still, employees may find it difficult to commute to work.
What Does Tata Consultancy Services Say?
The Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) said the company is in no hurry to bring people back and is looking at largely 25% attendance going forward.
The chief operating officer (COO), TCS, N. Ganapathy Subramaniam said, “We believe that 25% of employees in our offices, spending only 25% of their time at location, can make 100% of the people productive,”.
While, Bengaluru-based biotechnology major Biocon had said it will continue to operate “essential pharmaceutical manufacturing” in compliance with government requirements.
A Biocon employee said “We have significantly reduced the number of people in our facilities to only those who are required to carry out manufacturing and quality operations based on planned production schedules. All other employees are either staying back or are working remotely from home.”
Further, the same trend is likely to continue and no major changes are expected immediately.
What Does Cognizant Technology Solutions Say?
An employee of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp in Bengaluru said employees of the IT major will continue to work from home and “there’s unlikely to be any change.”
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.